Individuals and organizations typically seek to back up their valuable information. For example, enterprise organizations may routinely backup company information to one or more storage devices. The storage devices may include tape storage devices, as discussed further below. Depending on the specific circumstances, tape storage devices may provide higher sequential write speed, more ruggedness or durability, and/or lower data center power and cooling requirements, in comparison to other storage devices such as disk drives.
Additionally, enterprise organizations may update a data unit, such as a disk image, over time. When updating the data unit, the computing device performing the update may record the change in a separate data structure, rather than overwriting the specific physical data on storage. Over time, the data may become increasingly fragmented, in which separate portions of the same data unit are scattered over the underlying physical storage device. Issues such as fragmentation may slow down the process of recording data to tape, as discussed further below. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for improving the efficiency of recording data to tape.